Since Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards won the election in Louisiana and accepted Obamacare's Medicaid expansion, a whopping 265,723 low-income Louisianians now have coverage. That number is made more remarkable by the fact that they've only been able to enroll since the beginning of June.
Dr. Sarah Candler, who worked as a primary care physician at another safety-net clinic in the city, said she cried with one of her patients who recently learned she would get the new Medicaid coverage.
“It was like I got to tell her I cured cancer,” said Candler, who said the woman had routinely postponed recommended screenings and put off filling her prescriptions because she couldn’t afford them. “It was so powerful to be able to say that I could fix at least one of the things that was making her sick.”
For Cherry Jackson, a 55-year-old New Orleans native who had been living in a homeless shelter, the Medicaid coverage has helped her get medicines she needs to control her high blood pressure and diabetes.
“Every time my doctor would give me a prescription, I couldn’t pay for it,” Jackson said. “I thank God for this program.”
It's not just Louisiana, of course. Montana also just expanded this year, and has already double projected enrollments. Last year's enrollments in Michigan topped the number the state projected it would reach in 2020. Among the 31 states that have accepted the expansion, more than 15 million people have signed up, a reflection of just how much pent-up need there was throughout the country. That's also reflected in the fact there are still 3 million low-income people who remain uninsured, living in the Republican states that still refuse to help them.